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Friday, March 7, 2014

Sepia Saturday: Big Backyard

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family
history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday photo prompt is all about backyards
and fences. I’m immediately reminded of
one of my favorite poems by Robert Frost, “Mending Wall,” in which the old
adage “Good fences make good neighbors” is questioned by the narrator who
opposes building fences for the sake of building fences. He asks his neighbor – and the reader - to
consider what we are walling in and walling out. Like many poems, this one is simple on the
surface, but a philosophical discussion of the complexity of this poem is more
suited for a graduate course. And I’m
anything but complex.

The house in Cradock where I grew up came with a
fence. Not a charming picket fence. Just a scallop-topped welded-wire fence held
up by a series of metal posts. An adult
could press our fence down a bit and step right over it. Children used the mesh openings like steps to
climb over. It was a practical reality
of life that children needed to be contained, in view from the kitchen window,
safe from traffic.

We lived on the corner of Gillis Road and Upshur Place,
and we shared the fence with 3 good neighbors.

Mary Jollette August 1959
Sitting up near the grapevine

The fence that ran parallel with Upshur held a grape vine. It came with the house too. Every year we looked forward to a small crop
of purple grapes. However, between the
squirrels, the birds, and kids running up and down Upshur, we seldom got to
enjoy the fruit of our vine.

Facing Upshur were our neighbors Frank and Mary Bland who
shared the fence running along our back yard.
Frank and Mary were an older couple, somebody’s grandparents. They were extremely tolerant of the many
times my sister climbed the fence to go play with her friend Rusty Taylor, and
the many times Rusty returned the visit or hopped the fence to retrieve a ball
he hit into the Blands’ backyard.

Wendy and Mary Jollette Easter Sunday 1968 (?)
That's Frank and Mary Bland's house and car in the background.

The most lasting memory of the Blands, though, is late
afternoon or early evening when Frank arrived home from work. He always blew his car horn so that Mary
would come running dutifully to open the garage door. In our house, we’d all stop whatever we were
doing and yell, “Frank’s home!” Even
today when my sister and I are together and we hear a car horn in the distance,
we’ll say, “Frank’s home!” and then fall into a fit of laughter.

We shared the fence on the right with both the Allens and
my grandparents. Bets and Earl Allen
had four kids. Dickie was older and a
boy, for goodness sake, so he stayed out of our way for the most part. Peggy was the oldest girl, maybe 2 years
older than her sister Mary and me; Anne was the baby, probably 4 years younger
than Mary and me.

The Allen girls Anne, Mary, Peggy
and ME in dressups
Standing in my grandparents' side yard facing Frailey Place

Every day was a play
day with the Allen girls, so that fence got a workout. The wire fence bent and warped as little feet inserted
themselves in those window-like openings.

The Allens’ side yard was mostly dirt, thanks to a large
tree that wouldn’t allow grass to grow.
So it was an excellent spot for hopscotch, Mother May I, and jump
rope.

plenty of room for croquet despite two large pecan trees (we never got any pecans either thanks to birds and squirrels), a crab apple tree, a fig tree, and an oak,

and a kiddy pool – no diving board and no lifeguard on
duty – swim at your own risk.

Mary Jollette with Rusty Taylor July 1965

Anne Allen and Debbie Ellis

One day the splashing and squealing that accompanied our escape
from the heat of summer led to a verbal cat fight between my ordinarily
mild-mannered-non-confrontational mother and Bets Allen. Bets complained that she couldn’t take much
more of Mary Jollette and Rusty and all their squealing. Like a protective mother bear, Momma fired
back, “Yeah, well now you know how it feels over here when you let Anne scream
and cry all day.” (Ouch. I’m sure Mary and I were to blame for Anne’s
frequent melt-downs. She merely wanted
to be included, but Mary and I didn’t want some baby tagging along ruining our
fun.)

That was one day when good fences did indeed make good
neighbors as Momma and Bets each retreated to their homes to cool off.

The other half of our fence separated our yard from my grandparents’
yard. The neighborhood kids probably
spent as much time at the Davis yard as in their own backyards. With hardly any traffic, the road was the
choice spot for all the popular jump rope games. But the big draw was my granddaddy’s
garage.

My grandparents' house with the ever-popular garage.
In the distance the Allens' two-story house
and then the Taylors'

In the summer it was a playhouse
with paint cans for furniture and old screens for walls. Sometimes it was a school. Sometimes it was a hideout for robbers. And in some game resembling tag that we
invented, it was a prison for slow runners captured by The Eagle.

My own backyard was fenced in, but the backyard of my
youth extended beyond that wire fence.
When we grew tired of one yard, we moved on to another. We played in the Harrises’ ditch. We skated in the Horniks’ driveway. Nobody complained. Just free to be.

Hop the fence and head to Sepia Saturday
for a plethora of backyard adventures.

46 comments:

Nice childhood memories. You have to look closely to see your fences. It must have been fun growing up next door to your grandparents - we left both sets of grandparents behind in NZ when we came to Australia, Dad's mother died 3 years later, without him getting back at all, and I think my Mum only saw her mother 3 more times after that, so it must have been hard for both of them.

Fun post with the 'Fence & Neighbor' narratives right through the Melt Down and Cool Off! Great pics and memories. Isn't it amazing what one little ole prompt can bring out of the backyard. Well done for Sepia Saturday.

What a wonderful trip through your childhood and various yards. I had fun playing dress-up with my girl friends too, but my favorite was playing (American) football with the boy up the street IN the street! Fortunately it wasn't a particularly busy street.

You've distilled the perfect essence of childhood geography with this post, Wendy. A child's back yard had boundaries that were invisible and not always contained by adult structures like walls and fences.

You begin your lovely family journey with one of my favorite things growing on a fence. Grapes, how lucky. I am a fan of that quote as well, and you'll surely pick up on it once you read my opening quote for my post. Thanks for the trip through your childhood!

What wonderful memories of family and friends. I really like Easter photos -- and you and Mary definitely make the grade as being in your Easter best. Also liked the dress up photos. I kept a trunk of "dress-up" stuff long after my granddaughters wanted to play dress up.

Kristin explains the game. The Mother dictated the type of step such as "you may take 2 baby steps," "you may take 1 giant step," "you may take 5 butterfly twirls," "you may do 1 cartwheel," etc. The person who reached the Mother first became the new Mother.

We played Mother May I. Everybody lines up and one person is opposite, some ways from the line. This person says "you may take 1 step", as I remember calling out a name. If the person doesn't say "mother, may I?" before they take that step,they have to start over. If they do ask, they may be told yes or no, you may take 5 steps or whatever. This post did take me back to days of playing in the neighborhood.

It was a happy time. My sister and I still see these neighbors occasionally. As for my memory, I'll admit I had to contact a friend on Facebook to recall Frank and Mary's last name. I knew it started with a B.

I'm sure I've blocked out anything that wasn't great, but overall yes, it was a good time and a good place with lots of places to go and places to play without worrying about being assaulted by a predator or enticed into a stranger's car.

The fence in our front yard was an important part of my youth. The girl next door, Mary, was halfway in age between my sister and me and early in our childhood she was my BFF, and later on she was my sister's BFF. Mary and I would often get into little fights and one or the other would run home in a huff. It usually didn't take too long before one of us would pick up the phone and call the other to say, through our tears, "meet me at the fence" and we'd run outside and meet at the fence for a much needed hug. The neighbors all used to laugh when they'd see us outside hugging and know that we were making up from one fight or another.

What a fun romp through your childhood neighborhood, Wendy. Our swing sets could be fraternal twins: the only difference was that mine didn't have a "teeter-totter" -- if that's what they're called. And I can absolutely identify with those made-up "real life games" -- playing school, house, etc. Dress-up? Yes. Croquet? Yes. Fences? No. We didn't have fences anywhere in my hometown that I can remember.

Playing Eagle always scared me to death, LOL. I know we were talking about the Harris' ditch the other day, what did we do in that ditch, just lie there two inches from the Highway and look at cars?

Daddy said that Granddaddy Davis always sat on the porch to watch y'all play to be sure nothing happened to you. What sweet granddaddy.

I wonder what became of Mary and Frank. I don't think they were were as old as we thought they were. Frank traveled to Russia when I was in 5th grade, left sweet Mary home by herself. At least she didn't have to run out and open that damn door for Frank for a couple of weeks. BEEEP! Frank's home!

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About Me

My name is Wendy. About twenty years ago, I helped my mother research the Jolletts. Since retiring from teaching, I have expanded my research which I share here. When I’m not looking for my own family, I index for FamilySearch and the Greene County Historical Society.
Welcome to Jollett Etc. Please leave a comment to let me know you were here. If you have more information or believe we are related, EMAIL ME at wendymath at cox dot net